The Greeks, in their tragedies, did their slaughter behind the scenes, and occasionally the cries of the supposed victims were heard.

But theatre-goers of to-day would feel cheated if the last act of Othello were left to their imagination.

When Salvini thrusts the crooked knife into his throat, with that ghastly sound of death that one never forgets, the modern spectator would not understand what the death-rattle meant, did he not see the action that accompanies it.
"It is too realistic," said Mr.Barker in his high thin voice when it was over, and he was helping Margaret with her silken wrappings.
"It is not realistic," said she, "it is real.

It may be an unhealthy excitement, but if we are to have it, it is the most perfect of its kind." "It is very horrible," said Miss Skeat; and they drove away.
Margaret would not stay to see the great man after the curtain fell.

The disillusion of such a meeting is too great to be pleasurable.